


I'm a Ghost to You, You're a Ghost to Me

by missheywoods



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Mutual Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missheywoods/pseuds/missheywoods
Summary: Charlotte wishes to rewrite her history - if only Sidney were to agree. More than a year since their parting, the two pave a road to reunion.
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Comments: 118
Kudos: 361





	1. Advent

**Author's Note:**

> And a very happy birthday to the lady herself Jane Austen b. 16 December 1775. This wouldn't exist without her.

**i**

_December 1820_

  
Sidney had thought he might do well to escape the rain but knew, in its ceaseless beat all around him, that it was futile. He pressed his horse onwards. The mare was restless, disliking the rough turn of the road, and he was now thoroughly soaked to the bone.

He could hardly greet Miss Heywood looking like a shivering wreck, could he? It would not do. Yet, he must.

The journey from the coast and inland was trying, beset by anger at Tom and a final gargantuan stirring of his own courage, with consequently little thought put into the ride. The small village of Willingden nor the pastures of Sussex which surrounded it were familiar to him. He was certain he had passed the same tilled field more than once but continued, somehow convinced his heart might steer him right.

Past an oast house, past a stream and a prettily arched bridge, the road became more agreeable and began to incline. He gently encouraged his horse around a blind corner and by a stone outbuilding thickly laced in ivy before he emerged on the other side at the entrance of a wattle and daub house. It was whitewashed and not inelegant, if a little tattered in its brittle timbre framing. Relief swept through him. Yes, the Heywoods' home was exactly as Mary had described.

A gated wall enclosed a courtyard. Upon approach, he could not see anyone within, though could hear the cluck of fowl. He got off of his horse and made the rest of the way down the track on foot. His clothes now clammy, for it had only just ceased to rain, his nerves now plain in his chest. The wall shadowed him for a brief moment in which he could collect himself, and then: 

There she was, entirely unaware as to his presence. A basket hooked under her arm for her to throw feed to the chickens. He could still hear the stream as a low roar in his ears, or perhaps it was his own blood rushing dizzily within. Her movements were gentle and absent-minded; a voice called her name from indoors; a candle was lit in the upstairs window. He realised it to be sundown, the light rapidly fading into a weak greyish yellow.

Screwing his bravery to the sticking place, he led his horse into the yard. At the clip of hooves, Charlotte turned.

How clarifying it should have been to see her fine, pale face again. Gone were her summer’s freckles, the coppered highlight of her hair faded and grown a little longer. Gone were silks and muslin in favour of stronger, earthier tones of cotton, a woolen outer cloak. She was harder seeming too, her softness glaringly sharpened in the early winter light. And how beautiful, like the moon appearing in a clear daytime, squinting at him from afar with the scrabble of red hens about her feet.

He took another pace forward. He must look a sight, bedraggled, a shock, hoping no-one of her family would spot him and come hurrying outdoors for him to explain himself.

He was not sure he could, his heart loud and his mouth dry. 

Charlotte’s eyes bore into his, her confusion and surprise plain. As he neared she flushed a little, shaking her head, and that frown he so loved formed on her brow. Only in the moment he let go of the horse’s reins did she move towards him. He briefly thought she might strike him until he was hit with an embrace so forceful he staggered. Now he was certainly praying none of the family saw, but as Charlotte’s cheek hit his chest and the scent of her found him he was reminded of all that had come to pass and whispered a dazed hello into her hair.

She leaned in a little closer, as if to breathe him in too. Quickly she realised the inappropriateness of the gesture. “Mr. Parker,” she said, stepping back. “It is most surprising - ” She cut off, searched his face. “W - why have you come here?”

Because of a private promise to himself to never leave her. A wish to do better. A joy, quiet in his soul, long since given over to her care, aching in him as she nervously clutched at her shawl in anticipation of his answer.

He looked at her, and looked at her, and began with the truth.


	2. Eastertide

**ii**

_January 1820_

Charlotte arrived home in time for the final harvest, August light waning into a crisp September. Once Michaelmas arrived, then Christmas with its childlike excitement, she had grown bored of preparation for the hardiness of winter. She could barely distract herself from her thoughts with mindless chores and mending, and by the new year she knew what needed to be done.

She wrote a polite request to Lady Susan. The reply was swift and eager.

Her father was wary, for he had noticed her listless behaviour of late, but her mother encouraged the change of pace. So a carriage was sent for, and London greeted her on a foggy afternoon two weeks into society’s annual season.

Despite the lavish distractions of Lady Susan’s hospitality, a return to the capital held one unexpected consequence: to serve as a reminder of Sidney. His gruffness, then apology; their dance, and how suddenly enchanting he had seemed; the moment she realised herself to be falling in love when he held her closer than needed and began to smile with a joy she never expected from him.

Now she feared meeting him, whether by accident or design, not knowing if or when their paths might cross. Much as she was reassured of the slim chances, Charlotte still fretted, for the beau monde did not seem so large as she had imagined.

However, in the month of January, London's million felt to have doubled; its streets flowed with the business of parliamentarians and the activities of social calendars. Busy men in black top hats, women wrapped up warm in carriages, trees bare, days short, clean white terraces stretching as far as Charlotte could see. She resolved to remember her adventurous spirit and set on making the best of it. Lady Susan’s generosity was good for her, and she had been right to ask to come.

Fine dresses and balls did indeed provide a worthy escape from the constant demands of the farm, where her hands had lined with dirt and her curls ran wild, and her body worked but her mind held little distraction. It was only when alone to her room did she allow thoughts of Sidney Parker. The first night, as she braided her hair for sleep she wondered what his fingers might do to untangle it, how gentle he might be, which caused her to careen down a rabbit hole so fully she scarcely knew where to surface for air.

She ignored the feelings, the dreams. She traversed galleries and salons, swirled in the arms of men with clipped accents and polite smiles, but felt none of the warmth of him. None of the pull of his gaze and touch. None of the bare recognition.

A fortnight passed. Then, as if by her own conjuring, there he stood. In the midst of a pillared and candlelit room in Chelsea, tall and sharp-featured as ever, an amused Eliza at his arm. Charlotte felt a sudden shame. Sudden alarm as to make her recoil, and yet - oh he was looking. Oh, those dark eyes met hers and had no sense to look away.

They did not dance, nor speak, that night.

***

Two evenings later, with pearls woven in her hair and the promise of snow in the thick clouds, she again donned her dancing slippers and a new silk dress in deep Prussian blue and entered a carriage. The Mayfair ballroom was grander than the last; this time, despite herself, she actively scanned the crowd for him.

They arrived partway through the second dance. Eliza in an extravagantly embroidered cream, Sidney’s waistcoat a smooth matching shade. Charlotte, flushed and clapping along to the latest jig, deliberately met his eye. He went completely still. His mouth twitched, and he turned his attention swiftly back to his companion. She watched him lift his chin just so, attempting to listen to the conversation at hand but noted his posture did not relax. For the first time, Charlotte felt a small thrill of control.

After her fifth dance in a row, including a charged moment of choreography in which she and Sidney were forced to link hands and turn thrice together, Charlotte retreated to the fringes of the room. She sipped champagne, bubbles going to her already giddy head. Sidney too had left the dancefloor. Her heart had not yet slowed from exercise, nor perhaps the feeling of his hand in hers, but in a moment of bravery, she noted his whereabouts, nodded at him over Lord Babington’s head and made her way outside.

The city smelled of woodsmoke, underlain with the metallic grit of coal. The long-promised snowfall had begun, and the chill was bitter, biting where her skin was bare.

Footsteps. “Your presence is much noted, Miss Heywood.” 

An unmistakable voice, as soft and resonant as remembered. She turned to Sidney, all slim lines and a bemused expression. “Indoors,” he clarified.

He stepped out onto the marble portico beside her. The square opposite glowed through the haze of snowflakes, as cosy as a scene in a storybook. Charlotte's bravery dissolved as she wondered why she had wished to see him in quite so private a capacity so soon, and she rushed to speak.

“I endeavour to return shortly,” she said. “I am sure your absence is felt more keenly than mine.”

He shot back, perfectly calmly, “I assure you, it is not.”

His voice was almost conspiratorial, but she heard the tense undercurrent in it. He quietly observed the scene before them. She tried not to slant a glance at the figure he cut in his tails. The quartet strings surged from inside and Sidney fixed a look upon her, hard to distinguish in the torchlight. Charlotte stood hypnotised by the eddies of snow, unable to formulate a thought other than how romantic a setting it might have been in other circumstances.

“Mr. Parker,” she settled on, “there must be people awaiting you.” Her anxiety, she realised with startling acuity, was not due to his presence itself; it was a cocktail of proximity, the adrenaline of him near, the fear of what to say, and the inner stress of remaining outwardly confident. This was not a vindictive attitude, rather one of protection, and it was becoming startlingly clear Sidney could see straight through it.

“Maybe I am of a mind not to return at all,” he countered, and with it came closer to her. Only a little, but it was effective enough to bolster her next question.

“Are you not promised for a dance of two?” she asked, still unable to look at him properly.

“Perhaps if one’s partner were agreeable,” he said, low, tinged with bitterness on 'partner'.

Yes, she felt that too. Bitter. Tired, raw. She took a breath, anticipating his next answer. “And what criteria must she meet, pray?”

He laughed a rich note that caught her unaware. It was a thrill, to have elicited such sudden warmth from him, because she had forgotten the sound, the way it coiled beneath her breast and made her wish for more of it, to feel more of its glow. 

“A merry countenance,” he said, “beloved by all … and a talent for observation.”

She turned at the final word, picking up on the memory, and for a moment they simply stared at one another. “But not for assumption,” she said, to break the spell.

“No,” he said, understanding.

A reel struck up right on time, and he straightened. He nodded politely. “I shall see you inside, then, Miss Heywood. Be certain you don’t catch a chill.” With that, he turned away to the doorsill.

As he left, her gaze returned to the dizzying gale of snowflakes in the gas lamps on the street. _Oh Charlotte,_ she thought. _Trouble._

***

Her longing outran her judgment, and she returned swiftly to the cocoon of heat and bodies, to find him waiting on the fringes. Eliza was swirling in the arms of another. Sidney observed the crowd, then held out his hand. The moment she took it, she was at war with herself. His composure prompted her heartbeat into a rapid rhythm once again.

The music ran a slow beat of strings at first, his shoulder beneath her gloved palm, his hand pressed flat to her back. They moved as they had in their second dance, nearly half a year previous: in tandem, the elegance of his lead lost in the firmness of his body so close to hers, the shadowed intensity of his eyes creasing with kind encouragement. How she loved his brows, the dark curve of them. His lips parted slightly as he watched her spin away and return upon the axis of his grip, and then he grinned.

She was dizzy, beaming, alive.

The dance ended just as quickly. Applause thundered through the room. She had no sense of anyone else, and a blinding urge to kiss him.

Over his shoulder, she saw Eliza moving through the crowd, and quickly remembered herself. She curtsied to his bow and forced herself to leave his side. As the night wore on she found herself loosening in the company of others, quietly taking in their conversation and quick wit, all the while ignoring the burn in her stomach from watching a man mere feet away whom she had nothing and everything to give.

***

The following morning Charlotte awoke quite late and with her head a little groggy. As she descended the staircase for breakfast, she heard unexpected voices emanating from the lounge. Lady Susan, and another female accompaniment, which upon further listening she discovered to be Mary Parker.

Her voice was distinct and soft, yet easily heard: 

“... I cannot imagine he is content in such a bind, however, Tom continues on blithely unaware of Sidney’s distress.”

“And what precisely is the cause of this distress?”

“Heartbreak, I fear, Lady Susan. Papered over with a sense of familial loyalty.”

“Quite. Then what can be done?”

“I have long wished for Sidney’s happiness, and it troubles me greatly to think the chance of it has been taken from him.” Mary Parker sighed, a rattle of china distinct in her pause. “He is a wonderful brother, truly, but I fear his sacrificial nature in this matter cannot sit well with any of us for long.”

Charlotte hurried along to the breakfast room, flushing with renewed sorrow from the implications of Mary’s words. She puzzled over the night before as she took toast and tea. _Maybe I am of a mind not to return at all._ It was plain he was not happy with Eliza, but that had been plain to Charlotte from the moment she decided to forgive him. In part, her heart had only begun to heal because she knew he was too good not to fulfill a bargain. 

Now it cracked again. What could she, a country girl from Willingden, do now that he was bound for his life to someone of his own standing? What on earth could she do?

***

Mary stayed for some time. She greeted Charlotte warmly when she made her entrance after breakfast and offered a stroll through Hyde Park. There was still snow on the ground in light and icy patches, and they picked their way along the paths arm in arm. Despite the dry cold temperatures, there was a merry atmosphere about the tall trees. 

Before Charlotte could enquire about Sanditon, Mary concluded she must come and visit for Easter. “The children so miss you,” she said.

“I would be delighted,” Charlotte agreed, and she would, for her family were not much for extravagant celebration, with so many little ones to corral. As Mary happily began to describe the local church service and the inevitable roast dinner, Charlotte’s thoughts drifted to the guest list, to one person and one only.

“Pardon me, Mary, but will Sidney be attending?”

Here Mary faltered, realising her tactlessness. “My dear, of course he will, from Friday to Sunday at least. Rest assured you will arrive quite before him. If fact, he is due to set off to the continent only weeks before.” 

“Oh?” Charlotte said, slightly thrown.

Mary continued blithely, “A procurement for the wedding, from a French vineyard Mrs. Campion is partial to. Though why the bridegroom must go himself to ensure the quality of the wares I do not know.” 

Charlotte frowned, entirely in the dark about continental travel and confounded with Sidney’s sudden need to go abroad; the wedding being a spring affair surely made it imprudent to spend weeks of that time away.

“Forgive me, I’m sure you want to hear the minimum about him,” Mary said, squeezing her hand.

“Not at all,” Charlotte said, smiling tightly. “I did ask. Thank you for informing me.” And they turned back towards the sparkling townhomes of Mayfair.

***

_March 1820_

There was frost on the road to Sanditon, the sea an angry and flat steel grey. Nerves clawed through Charlotte’s stomach, crashing and heaving like the waves below, and the fresh salt air did nothing to calm them. 

They passed through familiar streets, and streets stacked high with scaffolding. Upon arrival at Trafalgar House, the children greeted her in a flurry of squeals and hugs. Mary gathered the morning post from the side table, sifting through it aimlessly as the children endeavoured to drag Charlotte down the hall to their playroom before she had even taken off her coat.

“A letter for you, dear,” she said as she passed, holding out a slim envelope.

Charlotte took it. The cursive was distinct and bold, not one she recognised. Mary raised her eyebrows and discreetly left. Charlotte’s breath quickened, and quite of their own accord, her eyes flicked to the portrait she had gazed at many times. Then she turned on her heel and ran up the stairs to her former bedroom.

She threw open the curtains with a view of the sea, not caring about the cool draft through the windowpane, and sat at the writing desk, eagerly breaking the seal on the back of the thick paper. It smelled of him, of his travels. Salt, fresh wild air, the faintest smoke and a rich tang of fermented fruit. 

His handwriting was vibrant and strong, as elegant as he:

_Miss Heywood,_

_I am sorry to have missed you for the remainder of your stay in London. Mary informed me prior to my departure that you may be visiting Sanditon this spring; I ardently hope I see you at Trafalgar House._

_In the meantime, I write to you on a very fine evening with the view of a sloping Pyrenees valley before my eyes, the beauty of which I cannot possibly describe. I should so wish to eloquently capture these things for you Charlotte, I know your imagination would make them sing. Alas, I am destined to stumble like something of a fool here. My French is middling and I surely offended the vintner when I told him one of his oldest bottles had soured, but we soon laughed about it. The handsome sum I am paying must have helped._

_Only, I felt I must escape London, and I feel freer in a rural landscape. I have been on the continent for some time now, but you may be amused to know that one of my first tasks upon arriving coastally was to try my skill at swimming in the Mediterranean. I made good work of a humble cove near my billet, and clearer water you mightn’t see anywhere in England, though it is a sight warmer than the Channel._

She smiled, settling back into her chair. She could just imagine it, clear blue water, jagged stone cliffs, Sidney's hair darkened by the seawater and - She took a deep breath and read on.

 _Forgive me my candid humour, I have sampled a fair amount of wine today. Enough to make me brazen when I say this: the winter ball spent with you in Mayfair was the happiest I have felt in months. I missed your company, even though I am certain I no longer have cause to admit such a thing. What foolish things I have done. Worse than foolish. The truth is, in the time between Babington’s wedding and the day you left for_ _Willingden, I had a blazing argument with Eliza. About you. So I rode to you, to prove to myself, or to her, that I could let you go. It was cruel of me. I knew how I felt for you and I hated myself for returning to my cold veneer when you had given me such cause to abandon it. My mistakes have come to roost: I fear I must become a very fine actor to pretend Eliza’s company gives me any enjoyment, and in doing so I will not stay sane._

_The only sanity I possess must remain secreted away in the safety of a letter, where I tell you … I love you still. Always. Nothing has made me feel truer to myself than falling in love with you. I know it has been my greatest joy and caused the utmost sorrow. I know I will love you for my life long, even if I do so in vain._

_Je suis à_ _toi pour l’éternité,_

_Sidney_

***

Two days later, she saw him in the flesh. In the very hall where his portrait hung, she saw the man and the facsimile, one windswept and captured as eternally young, the other much more animated, kneeling on the floorboards to sweep the children into his arms.

“Henry!” he cried, jostling his nephew then setting him down to assess him. “You are quite nearly as tall as me.”

Henry vehemently shook his head. Sidney sat on the floor and slouched, earning him a laugh and a clumsy hug about the neck. He calmed, settling a hand on the back of the boy’s hair. “Perhaps as tall as Miss Heywood, then,” he said, glancing at her where she stood upon the last stair.

“Mr. Parker,” she said, stepping down. “I would have thought you should still be in France.”

Sidney stood. A pointed silence passed between them. The words she had read not three nights previous echoed in her mind and she frowned, pushing the thought away.

“No, I returned early for the shoot at Babington’s,” he said.

“Ah,” she said. Having grown bored, the children bounded past them.

“You are welcome to join the party if you’d like,” he offered, something falsely amiable in his tone. Softer, “I hear you’re a good shot.”

She nodded. Indeed she was. He looked hopeful, so she considered it. “Then I shall,” she agreed.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Good,” he said, turning towards Tom’s study as if assuming she might follow. “In the meantime, there is much to be done.”

He walked into the room with purpose, glancing at the piles of paperwork she had tidied only that morning, before stopping in front of the ever-more elaborate town model. “Do you know of the new plans?” he asked. Cautiously she came to his side and stood at arm’s length to examine the miniature white buildings winding their way towards the sea.

Sidney leaned down to indicate the waterfront. “Tom informs me the new townhouses must be reinforced for the gales, and the esplanade bolstered so that seawater might not wash up during a storm.”

She was not looking to where he pointed, but instead at the long taper of his hands, tanned and moving in elegant patterns below his linen sleeves. His voice held a melody she had long missed, his presence still acute to her, strong enough to pull her in like a tide. The wave of it roared in her ears when she realised he had fallen quiet, and his eyes, so often black by candlelight but now an oaken brown in the spring sunlight, waited expectantly for an answer.

“Indeed - it seems quite splendid, Mr. Parker,” she managed.

Her hand gripped the edge of the table and he took note of her unsteadiness. He straightened. His lips pursed, the strong angle of his brow pinched.

“Are you well, Miss Heywood?” he asked. “You appear flushed.”

“Yes, thank you,” she hurried to say, her heart at a high tempo beneath her breastbone. How she hated craning to look at him, how dizzy it made her feel, only more so as he stepped a little closer.

“I’ve been meaning to speak with you, if I may,” he said.

“Well,” she agreed in an attempt at lightheartedness to mask her nerves, “we are quite alone.”

It was the wrong thing. Her throat dried. His eyes darkened and the most minuscule tick appeared in his jaw, chest pulling in a deep breath. Then a smile, small and hesitant, adorned his face rather unconvincingly and he crossed the room to distance himself from her.

He stood before the fireplace with his hands held tight behind his back and indicated the sofa before him with a nod. “Please, come and sit down.”

She could not place his expression as he watched her walk the length of the room. Similar, somehow, to his shock on that snow-capped January night in Mayfair, amidst a jeweled and swirling crowd; similarly schooled into a picture of neutrality, thoroughly transparent if one knew where to look.

He seemed to shake himself and became less concerned with hiding his regard. He followed her movement as she sat on the thick brocade cushions of the sofa, folded her hands on her lap, and waited.

“I have thought a great deal,” he began, “since we saw each other last in London.”

And hadn’t she, too, their meetings there a near-constant memory in the following days. Now it was her turn to watch him, praying the heat of her cheeks might not betray her, but he was preoccupied in his own attempts to convey himself clearly, and dissatisfied with the approach of standing far away he came to sit alongside her.

“In truth,” he said, or sighed rather, “In truth, thoughts of you have been my constant companion.”

The echo of her previous thought, and indeed the paralleling of them in general, startled her. How could she dare to tell him that it was much the same for her, when they both knew he had written his own feelings so plainly? If since that wintertime ball he had strode through her dreams, dancing in the liminal world between sleep and waking, his features etched upon her eyelids and his name between her teeth?

She blushed.

“You should not, Mr. Parker,” she replied and lowered her gaze to play at the fabric of her skirts.

“That is the point exactly,” he said. “I cannot help but do so.”

Charlotte swallowed. The softness in his voice prompted her to look up, and there on his face was an old and gentle regard she had thought lost to her. She did not know, or rather did not wish to entertain why he was coming to her in such a tempest, when plans and life had seemingly moved swiftly onwards, despite what he had penned. He read doubt in her and his features immediately drew sharp with perceived rejection.

“Miss Heywood, I had hoped London might - ”

London might what? Be a tonic? An escape? Or the exacting hell into which he had forced himself to reside?

Finally, he came to the point. “You received my letter?” he asked, eyes glittering with a brief vulnerability, quickly shuttered away again at her silence.

Abruptly he stood, paced a few moments and gripped the mantle, stared into the fire grate. The clock chimed in the hall. On the fourth chime he looked back at her, his defeat plain, the dullness of his expression insistent and suffocating, tapping a vein of sudden ire amidst her confusion.

“I do not think I can bear it, Charlotte,” he said. “The charade.”

Nor could she. _He must not_ , she warred within, _I will not let him. Not now I might still hold the hope of watching him wake of a morning and hearing his deep laugh day to day; not when I long to know him well enough to note the year his dark hair begins to silver and smiling creases appear about his eyes… He cannot be hers when I want to learn with no-one else. He mustn’t go._

She nodded, gently, a foil to his distress. “I do not think you wish to.”

“But you read it? You understand.”

“I - yes.” She stood to join him. He stiffened. “Your sentiments are shared,” she reassured, hoping her voice did not shake too much.

He studied her, bore into her, the heat of embarrassment and something altogether new rising through her body. She came close, close enough to hear his breath hitch when she touched his shoulder. Nothing more than she might touch during a dance, but all the more intimate for the linen between her palm and his arm; the heat and shape of his arm, the small crook where his collarbone met his shoulder pressed beneath her thumb.

“They are?” he questioned weakly.

“Yes, Sidney,” she prompted again, daring to laugh. He sunk into a posture of relief, his lips parted, his head bowed. At his shyness, her stomach coiled. She felt oddly brave.

Her heart barrelling, quite beyond rationality, she moved to lift his chin, fingers crooked beneath his jaw, and touched the full edge of his lower lip. The small noise he made fascinated her. The slight slip in focus in his eyes. Then he turned her hand in his and kissed the back of it, ardent and lingering.

“That is all I needed to know,” he said.


	3. Whitsun

**iii**

_April 1820_

Babington’s estate comprised of a sizeable acreage of lush fields and woodland, through which the hounds ran deer. They popped up amidst the trees, were flushed into the clearings, more agile than their hunters, but were little match for Charlotte’s superior aim. A clean shot pushed back into her shoulder and ricocheted in the air. A stag fell. As the dogs bounded towards their retrieval, the smoke cleared and she heard someone clapping.

“A fine thing, Miss Heywood!” the Lord said beside her, grinning. “Wouldn’t you reckon, Sidney?”

Sidney, dressed in sombre black and grimacing from under the cold shade of a tree, nodded curtly. Charlotte shook out her fingers, eager to rejuvenate circulation in her cold-numbed hands. It was unseasonably brisk. Esther was beside her in a moment, Charlotte gratefully accepting the thick mittens she offered.

“Quite a wild little country thing you are,” Esther said. Her hazel eyes sparkled with amusement, and she tucked an arm in Charlotte’s. “Now shall we leave the gentlemen to it?”

Admittedly the hunt was something of a ruse. It was an odd choice for a lord and lady to leave London for the Eastertide duration when many would welcome guests into their fashionable townhouse parlours, but Lord and Lady Babington were not most people. To Charlotte’s eye, they were still in the throes of a honeymoon-like love, private and sincere, which they laid privy only to their dearest acquaintances. 

And so, it was of no surprise that Mrs. Eliza Campion remained in London. According to Sidney she thought the country uncouth anyway, was quite put off by the notion of hunting one’s own meal, and recoiled from any place that might tarry her fine dresses with the slightest speck of muck. She was content in the bustling smoke of the city and so Sidney had been obliged to join the party alone. _For the best_ , Charlotte thought.

She looked over her shoulder at him as she and Esther walked away. He had been in far merrier spirits at their Easter dinner in Sanditon, a handful of nights after their confessions; today he looked haggard, his cheeks hollow and pale, the shadow of his beard a little darker than usual. Charlotte made a note to perhaps catch him alone later to ask how he fared. For now, she worried at his state of mind to project such a tired comportment. She was no longer used to his quieter, brooding moods. She only hoped he would not take to drink once indoors, and knew she really must speak with him properly. 

“I do hope they get on,” Esther’s voice cut in. “Though Harry wouldn’t tell a soul of his dear friend’s private counsel, he has felt troubled by Sidney's low spirits these past months.” 

Charlotte’s heart traveled swiftly to her throat. She concentrated on her footsteps in the muddy earth, avoiding the thickest of it. “I’m sure I don't know what men speak of amongst themselves,” she said.

They entered the foyer, shedding coats and boots in favour of indoor slippers, and retired to the dayroom. Esther stayed wisely silent, and then:

“I will say this,” she said, settling into a deep velvet armchair. “A man in love is not quick to hide his ardour.” She slanted one of her sardonic looks at Charlotte. “And whether or not another woman is soon to walk down the aisle towards him, Sidney Parker cannot hide a thing when it comes to you.”

***

It was not until he had left the last turnpike road out of London that Sidney realised how tired he was. France had loosened the constant tension running through him, but it was as the carriage reached Sanditon that months worth of tolerant exhaustion were shed; more still as Charlotte told him of her mutual feeling; more again as wine flushed her cheeks and she laughed across the dinner table, the depth of her sparkling eyes catching his. London had become a chore, every party the same as the last, where Eliza flourished and he politely stood aside. He looked forward to the true peace of the countryside. Sanditon's wild cliffs served well enough as an intermediary, but Harry Babington’s estate proved an escape into true solitude, affording Sidney blessed time to dip into his own thoughts in the wake of his and Charlotte's conversation.

The residence itself was a stuffy series of heavily brocaded rooms, in contrast to the cool marble facades of Eliza’s townhome. On the whole, Sidney was not terribly fond of these grandiose old places, crammed as they were with furnishings and paintings, less house than a mausoleum. Still, Harry and Esther knew how to give the place a semblance of homely charm. 

The ladies retired after dinner and Babington talked his ear off into the night until he noticed Sidney’s wan smiles and told him to go to bed. However, once in the corridor he felt no need to find his room. The passage was gloomy, unrevealing as to the layout of the house, but he knew where the library was. He entered that cosy little space with a sigh of relief, only to find Charlotte curled up by the window with a book.

A curious combination of surprise and embarrassment rose like a tide in his chest. “Miss Heywood,” he said abruptly, turning to leave.

“Mr. Parker.” She unfolded herself from her seat. “Please stay. I believe we have not spoken properly since you arrived.”

He stood still, wracking his mind as to what to say. It was thick with brandy, a little slow. “You’re up late,” he settled on.

“I became rather engrossed in my novel.”

Relieved by an easy topic of conversation, he prompted, “Which is?”

She seemed at ease with his interest and held up the cover for him to read. In silver embossed print, Walter Scott’s _Ivanhoe_ flashed against the firelight. “Esther had it delivered from Edinburgh especially,” Charlotte said, setting it down, “before it was even through the London presses.”

“And is it diverting?”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, yes, it’s a romance set in medieval England…” She trailed off, pursing her lips. “You’ll think it’s silly.”

He put on a relaxed stance, folding his hands behind his back. “Not at all, I enjoy your enthusiasm,” he encouraged.

At his smile, she continued. “I do not know the history quite so well, but so far as I’ve gotten the main character, Wilfred, he is in love with Rowena, but must fight the Crusades at the whim of the King.”

“And Rowena is not best pleased with this,” he guessed. 

“No, she is worried about him.”

“Naturally.”

“He is very headstrong, you see,” she added, softer. Her gaze flicked over his face. “Noble.”

Sidney extrapolated her meaning and grew even more tense. “Even when he ought not to be,” he said.

“Precisely.”

“It sounds like a fatal flaw,” he muttered.

“Not entirely.” She shifted, perched against the dark glass of the window, her skirt splayed prettily about her. She had, in fact, looked beautiful at dinner tonight, hale from the outdoor air and with her hair pinned up over a white muslin dress. She had loosed it around her shoulders again and was looking at him curiously. 

“Let’s not pretend, Charlotte,” he said, finding his voice rough. “Not after all that has transpired.”

Her inquisitive expression fell. She turned back to the window. “You’re only doing what is right,” she said, careful, designed to stop him pressing any further.

“No,” he said, despite himself. He stepped closer. “By the very virtue of all I have admitted, and of being here with you, I am no longer doing anything right.”

Her face was pale in the glass. He was near enough now to glimpse at her behind her hair, his own reflection a smudge in his peripheral vision. As if they were ghosts to one another.

“Well then,” she said, “Why stay?”

Her chin lifted, a movement he had learned was her defense against vulnerable thoughts. At his proximity she breathed deeply and fiddled with sleeve. Without thought he reached and gathered her loose hair in his hand. Gently tucked it over her shoulder. Their bodies at a parallel, hers leaning into his warmth instinctively. He brushed the freckle hidden just within her hairline at her temple and she looked up at him. Her lips parted. He thought of the way she had touched him not days before, so gently assured of herself, and he had kissed her hand, so finally true to his own feeling.

She turned her face towards his touch as if she was about to do the same until he spoke. “When I left France I wanted to see no-one but you,” he whispered.

Her dark eyes returned to his, almost smiling. “And tell me.”

His declarations, her agreement, hung in the air between them.

“And tell you,” he repeated. He shut his eyes, hearing his heart thrum, and said, “I cannot marry her.”

Charlotte faltered.

“How can I marry a woman I detest?” he urged. “As I fall asleep every night Charlotte, every night, I imagine waking by your side.”

She swallowed, gaze falling from his. “The money,” she said, slipping past him to stand, and on quick feet distance herself from him.

Frustration bloomed in him at her practicality. He came towards the middle of the room where she now stood. “I don’t give a damn about the money,” he said. A flippant remark, selfish, but increasingly true.

She seemed suddenly limp, like a puppet cut of strings. “You must,” she said, “for Tom, Mary, for your nieces and nephews at least.”

He clenched his jaw. Charlotte stayed quiet, drifting about as though dazed. “I have spoken to Babington,” he began, to make her understand. “He wishes to invest. As will Georgiana, and I’m sure Lady Worcester could be persuaded - "

He knew he was careening forward with a sudden plethora of options, ones they had barely come to terms with once being unavailable. But Babington, all too aware of Sidney’s distress, had agreed to some of the burden, and Sidney could not ignore how it lightened a little part of his chest to know his friend was on his side.

Charlotte, upon hearing him, fled back to the window. She picked up her discarded book, closed it, and made a show of returning it to its place before she spoke again.

“You let me leave,” she reasoned. “You allowed me to return home, and to - " Her voice wavered and she paused, twisting her hands. Her speech was hollow, pitched to the bookcases, “- to grieve you because there was no other way. You condemned yourself to live out marriage as a contract rather than a union, and now you say there was a choice?"

She turned and he saw her cheeks flush, breaths fast in her chest. She scoffed. "What has changed apart from the whims of a few men’s pocketbooks?”

“Nothing has changed yet,” he answered honestly. 

She shook her head, features pinched. “Then spare me the cycle of gain and loss.”

He could feel her slipping, in the distance tethered between them, and panicked. “Only that I have allowed myself to see things differently,” he said. “Now that I am certain my sentiments are shared by you, I cannot be so cruel as to enact a life with Eliza at the expense of them.” 

She looked as though she wished to believe him. She remained stalwart. “You must do as you have promised,” she said, with an odd dip of her head, wide-eyed as if afraid blinking would release her tears. 

He straightened his shoulders. “But I am no longer obliged to. Mrs. Campion has already invested twenty thousand,” he said levelly. “If Babington is willing - ”

Annoyance finally gripped her. "Investments may save Sanditon, but will not heal us, I fear.” 

He deserved her fury, not her forgiveness. He wanted her to fight, not insist he stay the course. The flash in her eyes told him of all she was keeping back, and struck a match in him with which he strode forward, crossing the woven path of furnishings and rugs between them, his sudden anger bubbling high in his throat like the threat of crying might.

"Yet you would have me go for duty's sake," he spat, "in the knowledge that I will live in misery? Charlotte? Knowing that I love you to the very marrow of my bones?”

Her voice cut above his. “And how plainly you have said so, sir!”

He did not realise how loudly they had both spoken until silence fell again. Desperation crossed her face and she darted before him, sitting abruptly upon one of the armchairs. She was so quiet behind the wingback that for a moment Sidney thought she had succumbed to crying but pushed aside such a notion. Charlotte was strong and sure, as passionately upset as he was. He rounded the other side of the sofa obstructing him and came to kneel at her feet. The fire was warm at his back, her body curled into the chair. There he patiently sat until she removed her hand from covering her eyes to look down at him.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I should not place any blame upon you when I have done nothing but wronged you.”

Acceptance, dying anger, and gentle sympathy pooled in her gaze. After a long moment, she spoke. “You do not always have to take the fall,” she whispered. Before he knew, she had combed lightly through his hair. To his mortification the knot in his throat, moments ago thought to be anger, released. He folded back on his heels and pressed his fingers to the corners of his eyes.

“Sidney,” Charlotte said, “it’s alright.”

He shook his head, the crying already begun and leaned back into her embrace. The fire blurred and danced as he let his tears pool. Charlotte said nothing, stroking his hair again, then stilled, waiting for his breaths to calm.

He sobered and sat up. "What have I done to deserve your graciousness?” he asked, voice catching.

“That is just the thing,” she said. Her cool hands traveled to hold his face, her thumbs stroking across his cheeks with such tenderness he did not know whether to relax into it or stand and step back out of shame. He fought himself, as her eyes glowed auburn in the firelight, and her voice fell upon him softly, and her touch tickled against his skin. 

“- I cannot think,” she finished. Then she pressed forward to kiss him.

A kiss which said he had done enough simply by being.

Her lips were soft, insistent. She tasted of wine. He lifted himself on his knees to match her bowed height. Her fingers slipped to the nape of his neck; her mouth curved open as he tilted over her; he was increasingly aware that he leaned between her legs but she seemed not to care. He wrapped an arm around her waist as her palms pressed into the fabric of his collar. She released his lips and kissed his jaw, beneath his ear, her breath in little pants, all his sense gone and lost to her. 

The servants would come to snuff out the last of the fire’s embers soon. Charlotte dipped under his waistcoat to grip his shirt and Sidney was prompted into moving. In a split second of lucidity, he guided her to stand up. Now was the irrevocable decision: to go, when she so evidently hoped he would not, or stay and take her somewhere more private.

“Tell me this is not out of pity,” he whispered. She shook her head. Held out her hand.

The foyer was empty and shadowed, rain cascading against the large atrium skylight. The grand staircase proved a careful endeavour in the dark, but they made it to the landing with very little noise at all.

She was inches from him in the blue light, leading him down the corridor. A right, a left, a warm glow from a yellow wallpapered room. The moment he shut the door Charlotte was in his arms, stood on tip-toe to pull him down to her. He went like a man starved of air. Held her hips and dared not roam, even though she did, her hands finding his waistcoat buttons. He made quick work of them for her, and of his cravat, and allowed her to pull his braces away and untuck his shirt. She caressed his sides in exploration and her eyes widened with surprise when in a burst of impatience he pulled the whole garment over his head. 

He felt no shyness. He had after all been in such a state before her in the past, however, she paused. He thought for a moment that he had gone too far, but her look was not uncertain, only heated with curiosity. At least she did not turn away. She approached him, her hand carefully laid at the crux of his ribs. 

The other brushed the hollow of his throat and traced a line down his collarbone. Then she laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck to kiss him again. He delighted in her joy, held her close. She released him and spun around, instructing he undo her dress. The little buttons along the top half of her back popped apart one by one. Once free she shrugged the dress away and stepped out of it, and continued with his help until all she turned back to him in was her shift.

She stood with her weight on one hip, staring at his face with the faintest reserve. He could see her silhouette, outlined by the firelight, her hands playing at the muslin, her hair caught bright brown and russet. The gravity of the situation suddenly snagged at his lightness and he swayed in place, doubtful. Yet it was clear how fully she was here with him, deciding as he decided, utterly beautiful as she reached for him first.

She lay her head against his chest. He absently stroked her back. The doubt of propriety and reputation melted into this stillness, the pause of leaning into each other a more natural feeling than anything. Two outliers in a storm. His hand stopped at the base of her spine and stayed there.

“I shouldn’t be this happy,” she said suddenly. “Sidney, it isn’t fair.”

He lay his chin against the top of her head, not wishing to deny nor corroborate the meaning in her statement. If he could allow himself unutterable happiness, just for now, it would be alright. But Charlotte looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with brimming tears. He smoothed her hair where it had caught against his unshaven cheek. She blinked, eyelashes clung together, and it was a harsh reminder of the last time he had seen her cry so, all those months previously. 

The wind outside rattled at the windowpanes, the fireplace flue whistling. She sniffed and leaned her forehead to his. Soft, warm, safe.

“I love you, darling Charlotte,” he said, to say what he hadn’t then, and her eyes filled further. He stroked her cheek, thumb falling to the indent of her chin, watching the determination with which she tried to stop it wobbling. “Above all others,” he affirmed, nudging his nose sidelong to hers.

He felt a great tense breath build in her and her tears fall hotly. She hid her face and released the air from her lungs. Then it was she pushing him towards the bed.

***

In past moments, from instinct alone, she had wondered about the weight of him, the feel of his slim strength above her, and here he was, his elbows neatly framing her shoulders, her legs about him, as if it was right they fit in this way.

He let out a sigh and tucked his head against her shoulder. The prickle of his growing beard was a new sensation upon her skin, its coarseness gently rasping and sending heat deep within her belly. She did not know where this desire began, or how in particular to appease it, she simply felt safe surrounded by him. The wood and smoke smell of him, the faintness of salt brine in his hair; how soft his hair was; the warm edges of his body, the deep reverberation of his voice through his chest against hers as he hummed and lifted himself to look at her.

His hips rolled a little. The heat reached deeper. He watched her with a breathtaking openness, prompting her to forget her inexperience. He wanted this. Her. _I am yours forever_ , he had written. _To the marrow of my bones_ , he had said. Overwhelmed with affection for him she held his face again. Traced from his ear inwards. He stilled as she touched the long taper of his brows, the deep press of his eyes at their inner corners, the length and slope of his nose. The gentle depression before his lips, which she slipped down to hold the rounded curve of his jaw. He was classical, statuesque but living, his eyes creasing warmly at her wonder.

“I love you too,” she said. She wound her fingers into his hair to keep him looking at her. She said his name, watching the dark flit of his gaze over hers, serious, tender, joyful all at once.

Then all she knew was his fingertips, mouth, his tongue, in a rhythm her body seemed to understand, leaving her gasping. She arched inelegantly under him with a cry and squeezed the hand which lay on her stomach, pressing her back down to earth.

And if she returned the favour, kissing the grace of his neck as he moaned at the touch of her hand, she did not think of her naiveté. She did not think of her reputation. Only him, the trust of him, the words they whispered to each other that she would never tell anyone else.

And after, if she got up to slip into the next room, only to return to find him asleep with his long limbs splayed over the rumpled sheets, she did not think to wake him. Instead, she sat beside him for the briefest moment, his face turned away from her on the pillow. She lightly ran her fingers down his back to where his trousers met his waist. His skin was smooth and warm. She felt a sudden swell of protectiveness over him. She got up to extinguished the candles, then slipped into the far side of the bed and did not think about it until dawn.

For dawn is when Sidney woke, his eyes of rich brown depth in the honeyed light, to hurry from her room with his shirt loose and his hair mussed, his boots and waistcoat in hand. He reached the door and then stopped, returning with a swift grin to kiss her.

She met him, hand curved to the back of his head, with the tender force of promise. 

***

_May 1820_

Pentecost service ended with Eliza clawing a hand into the crook of his elbow and steering him out of their pew. It was a blustery London day, the magnolias in bloom. She held her bonnet on her head as they walked through the slim alleyway that led back to the main square from the close.

In the waiting carriage, they spoke little. He found fragility abounded in their relationship, and never more so than since he had arrived back from the country.

Her pale and elegant profile faced the window for the entire ride. Upon exiting, she did not wait for his assistance. Inside, the click of her heels had barely echoed a few steps into the foyer before she removed her hat and gloves. She stilled, her shoulders rigid. He could tell she was angry, as she gripped the small table that adorned the space with a vase of flowers, and did not look at him. Then, her courage gained, she spoke.

“Sidney, you do tire me,” she began simply. Played at the gilded edge of the tabletop. 

“If you can barely tolerate my company, nor show me any affection, what sort of marriage will this be?” She turned, batted her eyelashes with faux innocence, which triggered in him a need for obstinance.

“You know what sort it is,” he growled. When she pursed her lips he conceded gruffly, “I am not suited to matrimony, Eliza.”

“Matrimony is but the ceremony, you are not suited to marriage, I should think.”

Smug, she believed she had sized him up. Well indeed, the thought of a church full of calla lilies, and the wine and dancing, and the night itself, left him nauseous, but only when it was her that he and the ton watched walk down the aisle. 

“It is a question of compatibility,” he muttered, looking down at the floor.

“And you believe yourself compatible with that country strumpet,” Eliza drawled, eyes clear and ferocious as the sea in a hurricane when he next looked into them. 

“What do you see in that dormouse of a girl?” she asked, none too polite. When met with stoical silence, her expression soured. She struck, nastily, at a vulnerable point. “Or is she a willing spend?”

The provocation needled into him. Sidney stopped himself from shouting, though the desire to rose fearsome in his chest. 

“I will thank you not to tarnish Miss Heywood’s name. She is far from a dormouse,” he said, quiet and cool. It caused the blazing anger in Eliza’s eyes to turn to a stony detachment. “And I should not have to hasten to add she is a virtuous woman,” he grit out, for she was, to him, and Eliza had no way of knowing the rest. He shook with anger on Charlotte’s behalf, and perhaps with a little discomfort of his own.

“Well,” Eliza replied, easing off. “If you feel so plainly.”

Was it really so easy? Sidney stared, struck dumb.

“Yes,” she told him, “it is increasingly evident how little regard you have for me, and I must admit my own for you has waned these past few months.” Her voice shook in the slightest, like delicate crystal when disturbed. “You are handsome, but there is a devil in you,” she whispered, cheeks flushing.

How strongly she misread his character; how little she knew him now if she ever had at all. “And you, madam, possess a far from angelic comportment,” he rallied.

Eliza regained her posture and clasped her hands. “We would have been horrid to each other,” she stated.

“Utterly vile,” he agreed.

Eliza took his answer with a curt nod. “Then I propose this: your provincial escape is well underway, with my capital already partially invested. I will continue on as a patron, but you will no longer be a part of the contract.”

“You release me?”

“I do.” She smiled glassily. “We may not share love, Sidney, but we possess enough of a history of it to owe the other a little kindness.”

He nodded. “Thank you, Eliza,” he said finally.

He left London within two days, having no care to while away precious hours at Bedford Place. He arranged to go to Sanditon in haste. From there he would gather himself, and prepare to journey to Charlotte’s home in due time with an offer worthy of her.

Until once again the town itself conspired against him, and his infernal brother disrupted his plans.

***

_24 May 1820_

_Dearest Charlotte,_

_I know it has been some time, and I am afraid it will be a while longer. Tom is in need of my assistance in various Sanditon projects - a backlog of paperwork with which he and Mary are at wit's end, we could certainly use your orderly eye - and I find myself more waylaid than I had accounted for._

_But know this: I am entirely free of my engagement._

_You may already know so, should London papers ever reach a sleepy village such as Willingden, or perhaps you have heard the news from Georgiana. Or perhaps neither, and it is fresh from my hand to yours, as it should be._

_Rest assured all is well, merely busy. When my mind is not trapped by figures or the legal pages of the insurers, it falls on you. How you are fairing. What occupies your days. How you must surely be the spirit of your home._

_I promise to see you there soon, my love._

_Yours, with devotion,_   
_Sidney_

_P.S. Mr. Stringer asked me to enclose a few of his blueprints and elevations for your perusal. I trust you will find them quite fascinating. x S._

  
The date of the London wedding passed. They would be a footnote in the society pages, to be tutted at and spoken upon as a failing, but Sidney would not read the papers’ gossip. His only certainty was that he would never speak to Eliza Campion again, and his heart was light for the fact.

_5 June 1820_

_Dear Sidney,_

_I held my breath all through the third of June, somehow believing your freedom was not true. I am so very relieved it is. I trust you have gotten Lord Babington fully on board by now, and will speak to Georgiana. For my part, I will write to Lady Susan in due course. I have immense faith that all will be amenable to our plans._

_As for the rest, you are too good and giving of your time, you must know that, though it is a trait I most admire in you. I am a fine one to talk, as I write to you fresh from assisting my father with mucking out the horses. It has rained here for many days and I have been cooped up with chores and exhausted by my siblings tugging at my skirts, and all the while missing you._

_I do miss you. Incredibly much._

_I must confess my own curiosity: I have been occupied with thoughts of your life before my time in it. If you do not wish to speak of the past, that is alright, but I find myself interested in your travels and your school days. I even took down my father’s atlas the other evening to study where Antigua lies upon the map. I had a vague notion but it seems a frightful journey from England._

_You have such education and experiences I can only imagine, in part by virtue of your being male, be that a rather unfair truth. Sidney, I hope this world could be changing. For myself, my young siblings, and first and foremost for our children. They will no doubt be inquisitive creatures with the two of us as parents, and with my wishing them to be as clever and kind as you. Though if your good looks are also inherited we may be in for some trouble._

_Listen to me, skipping ahead into the future on the assumption of a promise._

_(I will say yes. I always would have.)_

_With as much love as I can give you,_

_Yours, Charlotte_

_P.S. Inform Mr. Stringer his drawings are both artful and comprehensive. The brownstones at Denham Crescent seem particularly spectacular and must have lovely views over the point. I cannot wait to return and see the real site for myself. x C._

***

_August 1820_

By high summer, Charlotte positively itched to return to Sanditon. She longed for the clarifying ocean wind, for the ever-changing streets, and not least for Sidney’s presence.

The delay had been long and appeared to be stretching towards an autumn conclusion. She felt for Sidney really, burdened yet again with his brother’s mantle, but found herself fortified by his letter writing, which was always slightly exasperated with his family and ever-loving towards her, leaving her to smile privately to herself when she read them.

Her family did not ask of her admirer. They were busy with the cyclical nature of the farm, and so Charlotte was quite left to her solitude and contemplation. She took herself on long walks, through the woods and fields of the tenancies, and allowed vivid imaginings of the day Sidney might arrive. Would it be amidst the golden wheat fields of summer’s late halcyon, or perhaps in the fog of a November morning? Would she sense it, or be surprised?

Her heart leaped at the prospect of a proposal, recalling his previous attempt all that time ago. How nervous she had felt then, a girl flushed with first love, overwhelmed by it and him.

_I have never wanted to put myself in someone else’s power before._

How she understood that now. Understood him. Understood that life was but a series of unfoldings, of choices and the liminal moments in between. 

She could wait if that is what he needed of her.

*** 

_October 1820_

“You are in love with her, aren’t you?” Georgiana demanded though she smiled. “That is why you are asking for my money.” 

Sidney bashfully looked out to sea. “Yes, on both counts,” he said.

“You see, even locked away with Mrs. Griffiths I do have some powers of observation.” 

“Your powers have always seemed particularly cutting towards me,” Sidney teased.

Georgiana looked up at him with a roll of her eyes. “I should like having Charlotte back with us,” she mused. “She makes you far less prickly.”

“Hmm,” Sidney agreed, then sighed. The legal hurdles of financing were very nearly at an end, but his patience had long since frayed. Every time he sat down with pen and ink he was eager to get up again. Every one of Tom’s schemes further exasperated him. He had traveled to London on his own business for two seasonal quarters, and on both occasions longed to take the wrong turning which would lead him northwest, to her, to his future, instead of the easterly which took him into the soot of the city.

Thorough funding was secured. The banks amenable, the insurance installments being paid, the pieces slotting into place now. The building work would cease for winter soon. By new year he hoped to make Charlotte Heywood his wife.

***

_December 1820_

“You called it off?” Tom sounded utterly shocked.

Mary, the children, and Georgiana were giggling in the front room, adorned with silver paper and evergreen boughs to mark the start of winter when Sidney asked Tom to speak with him privately. Once alone in the study, he had not been able to contain himself.

Tom’s incredulous response marked a rise in Sidney’s frustration. He squinted at him, pausing in his pouring of drinks. “She let me leave, why did you think I have been here all this time to help?” he queried.

“A delay! I do not know.” Tom huffed, grabbed his whisky where Sidney held it out.

“I have not spoken of Eliza in as many months, either,” Sidney pointed out. He shook his head. “We were ill-suited, in the end.”

A contemplative silence fell as he turned to stoke the fire. The cinders of a large log glowed hotly before fading down, and Tom said, “Time can change the heart, but Sidney, the rest of the money?”

“You have received Mrs. Campion’s quarter over the year,” Sidney explained, setting the poker down. “And Babington’s as of the summer, I might add.”

Tom leaned forward. “Twenty each? How could you be so foolish?” he said loudly, setting his glass aside. “When I rely on you for - ”

“Foolish?” Sidney repeated, astounded at his brother’s gall. “I am not the fool.”

“You have disappointed me,” Tom said gravely, in a tone that had the weighted echoes of their father. It put a twinge of appeasement in Sidney’s stomach, but he held fast against his brother’s barrage. “A great deal. In fact, I think it awfully selfish to do what you have done. To me, Mary, the children most of all. And then to not discuss it - ”

How dare he speak of selfishness when Sidney had abandoned his own sanity to protect them all. “Enough!” he finally shouted, feeling civility leave him. “When has there been time? I will no longer be treated this way, no better than a workhorse.” 

He stood, suddenly breathless with the relief of admitting his resentment. “I have allowed it too long,” he elaborated, “sacrificed too much to your whims.” 

He scrutinised Tom, sat stiffly in his armchair, surprise and dismay crossing his features in equal measure. 

“Your self-control, Tom, is pitiful, yet you insist on acting as a puppeteer to those around you.” 

Sidney could not stop his frankness now, his long-held restless agitation creeping up his spine. He rubbed his forehead. “I am of a mind to take the accounts off you,” he admitted, then added a little cruelly, “but that would be tantamount to fulfilling a destiny as your keeper I cannot stomach.”

“Sidney,” Mary placated, having come in at the sound of raised voices.

“No,” he said shortly and began pacing. “This is how it will be. You will take the last of Mrs. Campion’s and Babington’s funds. The rest will be tallied evenly from Lady Susan and Georgiana. Each will remain a patron until your vision is completed,” He pointed warningly at Tom, “- and completed it will be, following Mr. Stringer’s plans to the letter without further fanciful additions -” Then began his prowl across the carpeting once more, “during which time I will be free of your influence in all business matters and we will strictly relate as family.” He came to a stop. "Am I quite clear?”

Tom had the decency to look a little remorseful. “Yes, brother,” he said quietly.

“Good,” Sidney sighed. He glanced out the window, guessing at the time by the faded grey street that greeted him. “Then I ride tonight.”

Mary leaned forward, concerned. “Where on earth do you plan to go in the rain?”

“Willingden,” he said. The last of his drink slid warmly down his throat. He set his glass down on the mantle and looked at the two of them. “Miss Heywood still resides there does she not?”

“Well yes,” Tom said.

Sidney nodded. “If I am free to make amends, I must.” 

He moved to the doorway, eager to order his horse ready and gather his things. Tom stood and followed, frowning. Mary was close behind him. The momentum of his brother’s confusion, his sister-in-law’s hope, caught a flutter in Sidney’s chest.

“You do not know the way,” Mary fretted.

“I will find it,” he reassured. He pulled on his jacket and greatcoat, turning back.

“I love her,” he confessed and felt his heart jump at the thought. He very nearly laughed at the satisfaction in Mary’s expression, and the delayed goodwill in Tom’s. 

“Yet another fact that has passed you by,” he said, squeezing Tom’s shoulder with a jocular fondness he had not felt for his brother in a long while.

“She will give a favourable answer?” Tom said, looking from him to Mary.

Sidney stopped in the entryway. “Yes,” he said, as Mary rushed forward to fix his coat and kiss his cheek. He glanced down at her. “Or so I hope.”

She gave him a fortifying smile. “Good luck,” she said, the footman opening the door to the wind.


	4. Epiphany

**iv**

_December 1820_

Walking his horse through the mid-afternoon streets, Sidney began to regret his haste. The light cast gloomy shadows, the air electrified, with rain clouds forming a dense cover over the ocean. The wind needled insistently against him, bringing on a proper storm. 

He reached the fishing shacks just before the beach and was about to ride in the direction of the cliffs when a familiar voice stopped him.

“A hardy day for it, sir,” Mr. Stringer remarked, himself on foot and wrapped in an oilskin anorak. “I should hope you’re on your way to pressing business.”

Over time, Sidney had come to see a good and talented man in James Stringer. Though his outward demeanor may be gentle, his father’s death put steel up his spine, and it was a trait Sidney had witnessed best Tom many times over.

“Indeed, I am.” He gathered the reins and put a foot in the stirrups. Once astride, he looked out to sea and then back at Stringer, not dismissive, but eager to get on. “I have rather a long ride ahead.”

Stringer squinted up at him. “Only a death or a woman would have a man out in all weathers, pardon my saying so.”

“The latter, Mr. Stringer,” Sidney said, “I find the elements cannot test my will when it comes to this.”

Stringer studied him from beneath his hat, a small smile on his lips. “Best you prove worthy of her then, Mr. Parker,” he said. “She doesn’t need more heartache.” 

The horse tossed its head as if in agreement. Stringer stepped back. “Careful how you go,” he said in parting and hurried down the esplanade in the opposite direction. 

Slightly bewildered by the man’s astute observations and his blessing, Sidney drew a deep breath and urged his horse toward the cliff path.

***

Nothing from Charlotte’s summer imaginings could have summoned the image quite right, but when it came to it, she knew his posture and profile anywhere. Sidney Parker rode across the bridge from town, past the tenant cottages, and towards the house at a fast pace, his expression urgent beneath his top hat. 

She was surprised at the late hour. Dusk was near, the younger children already partaking of their supper. Charlotte took the moment to excuse herself, throwing a shawl over her shoulders and rushing out the kitchen door. Painfully aware there was no obvious reason for her sudden departure, she went to feed the chickens, the corner of her eye trained on the gateway through which Sidney would inevitably appear.

She heard Alison call her, and ignored it. He would come. The grain fell smoothly from her fingers and the hens clucked at her feet. He would come and the life she had been waiting for, dreamt of attending to, would begin.

She threw another handful. The clip of a horse’s trot lessened, her ear tuned for it. The glare of a candle flashed upstairs and she glanced nervously into the gloom of the portico, as though expecting her father to be waiting at the thick front door for the veritable dark stranger to explain himself.

Then hooves shuffled forth and Sidney emerged holding the reins. A man in black, the muzzle of a black horse bowed beside him, his hat clutched in hand and his gaze intent upon her.

Well. She could stare back, could she not?

She breathed in a slow lungful of crisp air. Heat ran through her body. A nervous sort of fire, an eager uptick in her heart. He looked cold, his steps halting. Water dampened his hair and ran from the wool of his coat, the one with distinguished layers of cloaking at his shoulders. 

His features resolved as he came closer, eyes no longer in shadow, lips parting as he made to speak. She moved towards him before he could say a word, and was in his arms before she quite realised, her cheek hitting his chest.

She reveled in the feeling of his arms wrapping around her, and his warmth despite the subtle shiver running through him, before she remembered they were out in the open and there were thirteen pairs of prying eyes in the house. She detached herself.

“Mr. Parker,” she said formally lest anyone hear, “it is most surprising — ” 

The way he was looking at her, his eyes at once soft and hopeful and glazing over with the faintest reserve, made her pause. “Why have you come?” she asked, hoping he would understand the need for her polite address.

Sidney did not beat about the bush. “You know why," he said, his voice low. “Charlotte, may we speak properly?”

It was all the excuse she needed. She slipped to the horse’s other flank and led the way towards the stables.

Once there and safe away from anyone’s interference, his tension seemed to snap. She sensed him drop the horse’s reins once more and step out front to where she stood in the vaulted light, shyly examining the golden sheen of the straw beneath her boots to quell her nerves. What to say, after many months’ anticipation? What to ask?

“Where have you journeyed from?”

“Only Sanditon.” He spoke clipped and dismissive, edged in a little uncertainty. A long pause endured between them. “Might you look at me?” 

She did. 

Shame hit her then. In a rush, she was all too aware that their last moment together had been in a yellow bedroom, amidst warm sheets and sleep-worn defenses, and she felt utterly bare to that fact. As if the dreams she had had since were plain upon her face, as were the fears and excitements she had felt. Sidney stared at her, confounded. The shame became sharper. Of course, a cool reception was not what he had ridden for several hours to receive.

“Are you angered by the delay?” he demanded. “I can assure you it was beyond my control.”

“I am not angry,” she said quietly.

“You seem it,” he bit out, then squeezed his eyes shut at his quick frustration.

She had been angry, she knew. Bitterly, on nights when Alison slumbered beside her and tears slipped into her pillow, worrying she was not enough for him. A man as striking and self-made as Sidney Parker should not want anything to do with a naive country girl like her, and being home again after Babington’s had only made their difference in position clearer. She would always be the student, always playing catch up to his experiences, and perhaps her curiosity, her bold nature, was not worth measuring against her inadequacies. 

His letters proved how he felt, and yet doubt crept in. Would not someone more worldly, more refined in her beauty, suit him? Or, to look at it differently, why could a woman like that no longer satisfy him? No matter the nature of the match, why, despite her perceived inferiority, and despite all evidence now to the contrary, did Charlotte still feel Eliza might have been stealing the life she herself was meant to lead?

When she explained all of this, in a flurry of blushes and with a quaking voice, Sidney only slumped into himself with growing dejection. He clenched his fists when she had finished, then took an assured step towards her. 

“Charlotte, I want _you_.”

He looked away in embarrassment at his forward proclamation, before elaborating more gently, “I am yours, in all my faculties. There is no imbalance between us.”

Charlotte’s heart pounded with relief. Was he not here before her full of hope and regard, having exhausted and overstretched himself once more for others’ benefits, a noble reflex for which she loved him? She watched a plaintive look enter his eyes, and a sigh swell in his chest. 

He fretted with the brim of his hat for a moment. “We are the only two who know." He looked pointedly at her. “Please, believe me, that night at Babington’s remains ours alone and was an expression of all I feel and wish for with you in life, in — in marriage.”

Despite his words, the embarrassment returned, and she turned away, flushed. “Not quite all," she whispered.

"Ah," he said. "Well, I am not quite _that_ dishonourable."

"I should not have acted as I did.”

“We both acted. I have no regret. Do you?”

"No."

He fell quiet at her answer. Then, “God knows I have thought of it a hundred times since.”

She bit back a small smile at his frankness; his own smile formed as he once again proved more honest than was proper.

They looked at each other for a moment, before her eyes could not help but drop down his face. She remembered the steady press of his lips to hers on that sunny morning, the sweet and disarming affection of him in those early moments of the day. It had been an overwhelming feeling of being cherished, which in recalling made her dizzy.

Sidney came closer. She went to him, too, and happily tipped up to meet him as he bent to kiss her. He tasted faintly of whisky and salt. She curled her hand around the back of his neck, the damp of rainwater collected in the hair at his nape. He moved slowly like that first time on the cliffs, leaning a little forward so that her body settled firmly against his. He withdrew at this new angle, then returned blind when she reached on tiptoe, the pressure of his mouth both a relief and a thunderous thing, her blood in her ears, every shift and breath a new measurement, a test she aimed to match. He loved her, and he wanted her. Her knees wanted to buckle; she wanted to hang her weight from his shoulders and all the while get even closer. He read this need in her and stepped her backward until she was pressed to one of the large oak posts supporting the gable roof.

There they parted on a unified exhale, blinking away their shared daze. Their eyes met and they both laughed.

“Are you well?” she whispered, smoothing her hands down his coat.

“Incredibly well,” he said. “Exceedingly well.”

Her breathing was not yet regular, not helped by the fact he remained near. The need to find an anchor for the wild tempo of her heart nearly took her over again. She swallowed and found her throat dry.

“Tell me of it, then,” she prompted, to grasp some clarity. “Your freedom, how did it come to be?”

He eased away. “That happened rather more simply than I thought,” he admitted, frowning. “I am sorry about being waylaid.”

“I understand,” she said. He gave her a grateful look.

To distract herself, she darted past him and made for the horse. It stood docile in a corner, chewing at a hay bale. She rubbed its nose and smiled. The stablemen had long since gone home, so Charlotte went to the tack room and lit a lantern herself. She came back out to Sidney having divested his coat and jacket and rolled up his sleeves. They set to work, in silence at first, before he began to tell her the whole long tale. Charlotte watched him over the horse’s withers, feeling it was quite surreal to have him stood before her in the dim light, his voice a soothing low timbre. He spoke with openness, worked in tandem with her easily. Finally, she helped draw a blanket over the mare and allowed him to take the reins.

He re-emerged from the gloom of the stall, latched the gate and brushed the film of grime from his hands. She felt such an inexplicable rush of love then. His face turned away, she could take the time to look, and did, at his loose stance, the way light softened the turn of his cheek, the collar of his shirt loosed of a cravat. He was like that man in the yellow room again, a man entirely at ease in her presence, a version of himself she was fast realising was private between them. The thought thrilled her as he walked over, his boots and black trousers dusty.

She clasped her hands before her coyly. “So, Mr. Parker, in no uncertain terms, you hold no understandings?”

He caught her amused tone, his eyes crinkled at their corners. He tilted his head, coming to a stop before her. “I am obliged to no-one but you, Miss Heywood,” he confirmed.

“Then I am at liberty to say the long ride and inclement weather have not become you,” she teased.

He raised his eyebrows. “So I will make a bad impression?”

“Oh…” she trailed off, fighting the look of intent mischief that had crossed his face. She flushed. “You always look well to me,” she said diplomatically, dropping her hands to collect his from her waist. “Even when you are covered in muck, which you have now transferred to me.”

“Hm,” he agreed. “You are far too charitable, Charlotte. Taking in a vagrant.”

She swiped a smudge of dirt from his wrist. “There is a water pump in the barnyard,” she joked, knowing it to be frigid at this time of year.

“Ah, perhaps I spoke too soon.”

She sighed, brushing down her skirt. “They will wonder where I have got to, you know,” she said regretfully.

Sidney nodded. “Then we had best explain ourselves before they send out a search party.”

He went to gather his garments. He tied his cravat and shrugged on his jacket before holding out an arm to her. “Will presenting a united front to your father save me a talking to?”

She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. “It will save you a throttling, at the least.”

***

As it turned out, Sidney felt more than welcomed in the Heywood household. The kitchen hearth was warm, he was given stew and fresh bread, and Charlotte’s siblings chattered around him in jovial companionship like a flock of sparrows.

“I imagine your family life is less chaotic, Mr. Parker,” Mrs. Heywood offered after the plates had been cleared and the children taken to bed by Alison. Charlotte sat next to him, nursing a mug of tea, and if he didn’t know better he would think her nervous. He was in a strange state himself; Mrs. Heywood put him at ease but Mr. Heywood’s silent appraisal from the head of the table made him feel like a schoolboy. He only wanted to do right by their hospitality and time, for Charlotte’s sake.

“I’m one of four, Mrs. Heywood,” he offered. “The second eldest, after Tom. Then a sister and youngest brother.”

Mrs. Heywood laughed. “Middle children are diplomats by nature,” she said. “It’s the oldest ones looking to rule the roost you have to look out for.”

Charlotte shyly propped her head in hand. There was an amusing truth in her mother’s observation, though he would never say so amidst their company.

“My childhood was much like my nieces and nephews’,” he said, “full of play in a happy home. It is a situation I would be eager to create for my own children.”

He blushed, knowing he had not yet much discussed such matters with Charlotte. She had seen him with Henry and the girls; seen him dote on James when Mary allowed it; was certain she knew him to be a natural parent, as she seemed to be.

As if on cue a child cried, and Charlotte got up to tend to it. She returned with a flaxen blond boy of not quite three years, his cheeks flushed and his eyes wide. “This is the youngest of us,” she said, sitting down with him. “Gabriel.” He fixed his dark doe eyes, a copy of his sister’s, on Sidney and blinked placidly.

Sidney reached for his balled-up fist. “Hello,” he said. The boy stared for a moment longer, then leaned forward to his newfound friend. Sidney looked up for permission before lifting Gabriel into his arms. He had been absent from all but James at this age, and it sent a strange protective ache through him. Gabriel’s head tucked into the curve of his shoulder and his fingers clamped into his shirt. Sidney’s whole hand seemed to fit over his back and his curls tickled at his chin, but he found comfort in it, even more so when he saw all three of the other adults smiling at him.

“A natural indeed,” Mr. Heywood said, standing. He indicated the doorway. “I believe it’s time Mr. Parker and I had a chat, don’t you think?”

***

Both men’s voices were too low to hear through the study door. Charlotte paced in the corridor, counted the diamonds in the pattern on the runner rug, sifted dust out of the grooves on the staircase banister with her fingertips. It felt like hours, watching the candles burn down and imagining the two hunkered in the low chairs by the leaded windows, or perhaps on opposing sides of the thick walnut desk, discussing her future.

Perhaps Sidney was pacing as she was. She had no worry for him making his case; he was a steady, eloquent man, had assets to keep them quite comfortable, and above all possessed a kindness she was sure her father would react well to. 

She had no idea of the time when Sidney exited the room. She studied his expression for a clue: tired, mild, and frustratingly neutral.

"Your father is insistent I sleep here," he said. "You are to speak to him in the morning."

He gently pushed her up the stairs. At the landing, he kissed her forehead and retreated to his guest room with only a goodnight.

***

“Well?” Alison whispered as Charlotte readied herself for bed.

She tied a knot in the ribbon for her hair and sighed. “I am quite sure Papa said yes, but I will have to wait until morning.”

Alison huffed back against the pillows. “I think you have waited long enough.”

Charlotte regarded her before climbing into bed. It was a strange feeling, that these nights spent conversing in the dark might be getting fewer now, soon to end altogether.

“I shouldn’t know how to feel if it were me,” Alison said, picking at the tail of her braid.

Charlotte had a brief thought of James Stringer — a friend she sometimes wondered after, and whom, in another life, might have suited Alison. She snuggled under the duvet and sighed, turning to her sister. “A few more hours will not harm me,” she said.

“How does it feel? Having him under the same roof?”

Charlotte thought a moment. “Safe,” she said finally, thinking of how comforting it was to have Sidney but a few rooms away.

“Do you love him terribly much?”

“Endlessly.”

Alison smiled, her eyes shining. “You never told us he was so well turned out. Handsome, to be sure, but I think such fine London tailoring has never been seen in these parts.”

“Then let us be the talk of town,” Charlotte laughed. She did not mind what was said. To the villagers, she could be Charlotte Heywood who married a prince for all she cared, so long as she was free to be incandescently happy.

***

By half six, Charlotte could not wait any longer. She slipped out of bed, dressed with quiet efficiency, and unlatched her door, all without waking Alison. Careful to avoid the creaking floorboard on the landing, she went to the kitchen.

Her mother smiled from over the range. “He’s in the study,” she said knowingly, turning to attend to the hungry mouths awaiting her.

Charlotte found her father behind his desk, peering at a pile of papers she couldn’t make out, apart from an official-looking letterhead marked with a London address. He smiled at her when she closed the door and sank down into the chair across from him.

“Your Mr. Parker gave a good account of himself last night,” he began, setting the papers aside. “He is an intelligent and worldly young man. His nerves were barely detectable.”

Charlotte sighed, her nerves at their tipping point. She chewed her bottom lip.

“It is more than evident he loves you very much,” her father continued, looking at her warmly.

“You approve?”

“I do,” he said. He sat back. “You know, after you’d gone up your mother said to me that upon first seeing him she’d worried you might have been enraptured by his looks. Thankfully she was soon reassured of his character. If she had thought such a vapid thing would sway you, she had quite forgotten the strength of yours.”

Charlotte blushed. “That is … far from the truth of our courtship.”

“Well, he was disarmingly forthright with me. About all that Sanditon has entangled him in, and about business. I could have easily thought him caddish for what he did to you, my darling girl, but he has shown himself to be responsible, accountable, and of a giving heart if a stubborn one.”

“Yes. Yes, he is difficult to know, but I hope I am equal to the task.”

“I should think you are.”

“We have your blessing?”

He nodded. “I told Sidney the same. I hate to see you go, but if it is to a man such as him I cannot be remiss in keeping you.”

Charlotte flew from her seat to hug him. “I’m afraid I would go to him anyway,” she confessed after a moment.

Her father met her with good humour. “Exactly, my dear, I daresay you would.”

***

In the guest room, with the earliest pinks and yellows of dawn filtering through the window and the chime of seven o’clock on the grandfather clock in the parlour, Sidney was still in a decidedly thick slumber. He had, in fact, sunk into a dream, and beneath the gloss of curls Charlotte would soon tease in a morning routine to wake him, behind the calm of his features she would trace to test his ticklishness, a glimpse within the confines of his mind at this very moment revealed:

_“Tell me you don’t think too badly of me.”_

_The wind on the cliffside nearly took his words from him, the horses’ reins clunking gently as they stirred, and all he could look at were her eyes filling with tears._

_“I don’t think badly of you.”_

_“Charlotte,” he whispered, huddling closer to the carriage. “The truth, then.”_

_She pulled at the bow of her bonnet, raised her eyebrow in that particularly pointed way, and pursed her lips. “I am only sorry.”_

_“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he pleaded._

_She half-turned back towards the carriage door. “I should go home,” she said haltingly._

_“No, Charlotte, I —” He took her gloved hand, the thin kidskin cool along her fingertips. “I came to say I cannot marry her. Parting from you…” He breathed, ragged, the air sharp with salt, “Surely there can be no good in it if it feels as though it were a physical pain.”_

_She said nothing, only looked haunted by his words. Wishing to alter such a look, he came forward another step, pleading, hopeful, not caring about the coachman sat above, nor the other stood with his horse. Charlotte reached up and swiped her thumb against his cheekbone, where he had no recollection of crying._

_“It does feel so, but —” Another swipe, though his eyes felt clear. “You seem quite well to me,” she said, and came closer still, her hair in the wind fluttering about her face like a nymph. “Sidney,” she whispered, eyes searching his._

_He kissed her like he had wanted to at the moment he left for London and at the moment he returned, feeling her fingers grip his collar. Tenderly, with a sob swallowed in his throat, asking for absolution._

_“There will be another answer, in which we can remain together,” she insisted, and for it he flitted kisses across her cheeks, the freckles on the bridge of her nose, her mouth again. Her gaze was bewildered when she looked at him, but her determination clear._

_She believed in him. Hadn’t she believed in him all along?_

Sidney woke with the shallow warmth of sunlight on his pillow, slowly rising to the serene chirp of birds. The dream dissipated from his mind but left behind a disconcerting fog, as he slipped out the more pressing fog of sleep. There were voices downstairs, though he could not distinguish Charlotte’s from so far away. Darling Charlotte. He rolled onto his back and rubbed a hand over his eyes. How much time he had wasted; how rushed he now felt; what a headache he had.

Mr. Heywood was exceedingly kind last night, and perhaps over-generous with the port wine. Sidney heaved out a sigh and fighting his dizziness, got up.

***

Charlotte left her father and returned to the kitchen to find Sidney sat with a handful of her siblings, six-year-old James at his side. He glanced up and gave her a loving smile as she sat down next to him. James was exalting the merits of the creek behind the house in the summertime, and Sidney listened good-naturedly, nodding quite seriously at James’ stream of chatter. Charlotte soon saw it was a ploy, because his eyes darted to hers, amused. His hand fell to hang between their chairs. Understanding, she let her own travel to the folds of her skirt, soon feeling his palm wrap around her knuckles. He squeezed warmly, gaze returned to James. He laughed at a particularly excitedly told anecdote on frog catching, and she felt a rush of affection take her over. She slipped her hand out from under his only just as her mother turned around with breakfast. 

At least the food silenced her brother for a while. Once all was done she turned to Sidney, suggesting they go check on his horse in the stable, and perhaps take a walk.

“I imagine you would like to see the property James has so fondly described,” she said.

A low chuckle of agreement left Sidney’s throat as he ruffled the boy’s hair. “He makes it sound like a magical realm,” he said, pushing his chair back. “I would love a tour.”

“Should Alison not join you?” Mrs. Heywood suggested.

“I think we can trust Charlotte to be sensible,” Alison reasoned, slanting her sister a knowing look.

Thankful, Charlotte and Sidney made their escape before anyone could further object.

***

The day still cool with the dawn, they walked past the old boathouse, along the slender drystone wall which led to the water’s edge. Charlotte felt a giddy sort of nervousness at their being alone. She made to climb over the wall, had memorised the footholds which lay in it, finding it a quicker path than the cowgate as a child. Sidney was faster, up and over before her, and held out a hand. She allowed him his gallantry. She balanced atop the mossy rock and held his shoulders as he firmly grasped her waist and swung her down, though the drop was not great. They landed chest to chest, his murmuring ‘careful’ as she found her feet again. The memory of the regatta sparked in her mind. He smiled tensely just like then, an odd distance in his expression.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said absently. His hands were still loosely framing her waist as if he had forgotten they were rested there.

“Shall we?” She indicated continuing on. 

Still, he held her. He eyed the creekside path, but instead of any willingness, a stricken look crossed his face. His arms tangled about her middle and he sunk down to rest his chin on her shoulder, hugging her tight. Charlotte could do nothing but hold him, his smell and solidity settling into her as if they were one, his every shift and sigh somehow familiar to her. Briefly, there was nothing else: the breeze was his breath; his weight cantilevered against hers as sure as she balanced on the earth. It was his prolonged silence that put her on edge. The way he clung to her. An old fear clawed through her chest, forced down from its hot path up her throat. The swift ache of wanting to protect this vulnerable side of his nature reared in her again, for it was to be hers in trust and safekeeping now, always hers before others’ for the rest of their lives.

“You can say what is wrong, you know,” she said, gently prising herself away from him. He searched her face, his own gilded by the light of the morning seeping through the grove. 

“I’m sorry," he said. "It’s only… being here, I'm reminded of how much you do not know about me.”

She frowned. “I will learn,” she insisted. She tilted her head. “Your virtues were hardly quick to show themselves, I should expect no less reluctance from your past mishaps.”

At his stony response she squeezed his hands, reassuring him of her jest. “So long as we are happy, Sidney,” she said more seriously. “You do not have to tell me, and I should not have voiced my interest in the first place.”

“Yes you should,” he corrected. “It’s only natural. I want to tell you, but you will not find it pretty.”

She waited. He became discomfited again, stepped back and toed at the ground.

“The details are … difficult. For now, know that I …” He sighed, looked away, seeming to fight himself, and much as she wanted to soothe, to turn his face back towards her or free the distressed frown from between his brows, she knew she had to stand very still, as if afraid to spook a wild animal. 

He stared out at the glittering water and spoke with a sharp tongue. “The gist is that I have gambled, been a drunkard, fought men to exorcise my own brutish nature.” He refused to look at her, his distinct profile turned towards the far copse of trees, a slight grimace her only gauge of his mood. “I frequented torrid establishments in blind need, and made decisions out of blind egotism.”

“You were in pain,” Charlotte said, “you will not have been kind to yourself.”

“Or to others,” he said darkly. “Please, do not excuse me.” A deeper grimace, almost a wince. “And then my… My time in the Indies did nothing but leave me sick with loathing. Before and since I have failed as a sibling, a fiancé, and a guardian. I have been hard and harsh-spirited for far too long, embittered to my surroundings.”

“I do not need to know of the past, Sidney,” she placated, hating hearing him talk so badly of himself.

He did not listen. “Charlotte, the truth is, I wonder if I deserve you.”

Anger and peculiar sorrow bloomed in her chest. She took the few paces toward him, took his face in her hands and kissed him soundly.

“Yes, you do,” she said when she pulled away. “You’re a different man, now. Or the same man, much improved.”

He looked unbearably vulnerable for a moment, then swallowed, then nodded. “I will admit you have made me realise all the good I was cutting myself off from," he said, not breaking her gaze. "Because of you, I have stepped into a full life again. I now see where my happiness lies, and that is no small feat.”

“I am happy too,” she said. “Even if I find it an easier feat.”

“Then I do not care to be decorous.” He pulled back as she pushed away her hair where the breeze whipped it about her face, the heat of the sun growing behind her and setting its glow upon him. “I only want this to be simple. As I am tamed and you have tamed me.”

“I have done no such thing.”

“Who else?” he questioned. “Society did not do it. They built a facade but you -” He stopped to smile that knowing, crooked smile he had aimed at her from their first evening together onwards, and her breath caught. “Impossible, impertinent, ubiquitous you - returned me to the heart of a man I thought lost. A man most willing to be a husband.”

He paused.

“May I?” he whispered. 

She nodded.

“Charlotte,” he asked, tremulous, “Miss Heywood, will you marry me?”

There was no room for doubt as she said, quite quickly, what she always would have. “Yes, Sidney. Yes, I will.” 

A disbelieving laugh left him, a sound so joyfully surprised it made her heart swell. Her highest feeling, amongst many, was relief. She surged forward and wrapped her arms around him, met his lips with hers, felt him hold and lift her off the ground. The sun rose; he set her down. They stayed like that for some time, eyes shut, hands clasped. Then Sidney leaned forward and kissed her again, in the beginning warmth of the day.

***

Their own celebrations fell in tandem with the seasonal festivities, and so were accepted as such. The Heywood's barn was festooned with garlands and candles, crowded with people of all stations in the village; it had been this way every Christmas since Charlotte’s childhood. However, she could tell that it was unlike anything in Sidney’s experience, for he did not quite know what to do with the informality of the occasion. She introduced him to the farmhands and baker and butcher and midwife, all the people who had known her since small. He took it in graceful stride, was a man to be proud of, as her mother later commented when they watched him dance with Alison.

Charlotte soon took Alison’s place in the line; was partnered to him to the tune of a fiddle, catching his hands in hers and spinning under his arm. 

“Do you find us too provincial, Sidney?” she teased once she had come back around to face him.

“Not at all,” he said, “I should like to learn your traditions.”

“Yes,” she said, stepping away to circle him again. “Though within the estate’s calendar of traditions, this one tends to be the more raucous.”

His gaze tracked her as far as was possible, then met her on his other side. “Shall my wife wish to continue to partake in it?”

“When she is not in her fine new home at the seaside, amidst new traditions of her own,” Charlotte said, the room and other couples spinning in tandem with themselves.

“You are eager, then,” he observed, the glimmer in his eyes of another meaning entirely.

“Terribly,” she said, lowering her eyelashes.

He leaned close, voice by her ear. “Well then,” he said.

“Well then,” she echoed.

The dance wound down with a final spin, the fiddle replaced by applause. The intensity on his face encouraged an impulse in her perhaps brought on in part by the cider she had imbibed, but she leaned up and kissed his cheek in view of everyone, then blushed at the happy roar of those in the crowd who had seen it.

“To the Parkers!” was toasted.

‘The Parkers’ echoed.

***

Sidney returned to Sanditon. Three Sundays' of banns were read; Christmas arrived. By New Year’s Day Charlotte was back in the town she had not set foot in since the spring, this time as his fiancée, for which she was greeted warmly by all the family. On twelfth night it snowed, rather remarkable so close to the sea. That day, two days before their wedding, Sidney collected her for a walk to the beach from Trafalgar House, guiding her away from the children‘s insistence upon making snow angels.

“I have something to show you,” he said when they were a ways down the street. “Call it an early wedding gift.”

"The groom is not generally expected to give those," she protested, but only lightly. He led her to the newer builds in town, continued down the esplanade towards the point. He turned them inland, to an area she had not yet seen, full of stately new terraces. He stopped at the outer edge of a crescent street that looked up to the cut of the eastwards cliffs.

“These are the buildings Mr. Stringer sent you plans of, do you remember?”

“They look very fine,” Charlotte commented, detaching from him and stepping forward on the new slates. She put a hand against the wrought-iron fencing before the first and looked down the row towards where scaffolds were still standing at the opposite end of the curve.

“The first block’s interiors are nearly complete,” he elaborated, watching her face carefully. “The fourth house might be of particular interest.”

Charlotte walked to it, looking up at its tawny facade and new plate windows. Sidney knew it to be a handsome construction, had known it for weeks, seen moldings hung and floorboards varnished and plaster dried on the walls as Mr. Stringer toured him through. With a door of deep forest green and a brass knocker, it only now looked complete with Charlotte stood before it.

“How would you like,” he called, slowly walking towards her, “to say you are a lady of Denham Crescent?”

Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “I should never be a lady,” she remarked, “And I did not ever imagine I would be so well-heeled as to wish for exclusivity …” She trailed off, her features straightening.

“Oh, but Sidney,” she whispered.

“Yes?” he asked innocently.

“You mean to say these are from the elevations — with the view…”

“There is a very good view of the point, from just up there.” He pointed to the large front window on the upper floor’s left side. “A sight worth waking up to, I should think.”

She stayed silent for a long moment. “Did you buy this?” There were tears dancing in her eyes, their flicker searching his. “For us?” 

“I have it on a promise,” he said and reached for a key within his pocket. “If you’re agreeable.” When he pressed it into her gloved palm Charlotte truly did cry. 

“You did not have to,” she choked out. “Isn’t it too much?”

“I want a home,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He briefly held her, rocked her slightly, moved by how touched and surprised she seemed, before saying, “Perhaps to populate with all those children you have so eagerly imagined.”

She laughed into his coat. “Well I am quite overwhelmed,” she said. “But why do you have a key already?”

“Mr. Stringer,” he said. “Go on.”

She went up the steps and turned the key, turning the centre handle. The house was made up of large reception rooms and wide doorways, the stairs English oak, the floors hobnail boards, the walls still unpainted plaster, but it had a warmth to it, a classical simplicity, which Charlotte seemed to fit perfectly into and which suited him just fine. She toured the main floor with breathless enthusiasm. Upstairs was three bedrooms and a study. The kitchens were subterranean, modest, but spacious, and the attics a series of slat-framed walls yet to be finished. Charlotte ran her fingers over trim and windowsills, stopping in the main bedroom they had admired from outside. She looked out at the view of the point and turned back to Sidney.

“It feels like a dream.”

“It is real,” he assured, “and if you wish it, it will be ours.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “There,” she said, settling her hands on his shoulders. “I’ve wished it.”

***

The day they married was a cold day with blue skies. Her dress was cream and embroidery, finished by her mother only the night before. The church burst with guests and with flowers. The light from the nave window hit Sidney’s eyes like dark amber and their vows were said in clear voices. With a gold band on her finger, Charlotte felt like floating back down the aisle, climbing into the carriage which would take them to the small private cottage where they were to spend their first few days of marriage. There was rice in her hair, her breath stolen from her lungs from laughing at the joy on her siblings’ faces. She waved and waved to her family as the horses drew away down the sea path, and then around the shade of the bend it was just the two of them.

She put her hand atop Sidney's. They turned to look at one another. She could not stop herself from smiling.

Finally, his face broke from its reserved contentment, and his full smile came forth, only for her. 


End file.
